New documentary goes ghost-hunting in Oshkosh

'Haunted State: Theatre of Shadows' is a paranormal documentary film from Appleton filmmaker Michael Brown. It explores four theaters said to be haunted in Wisconsin, including the Grand Oshkosh.
Hungry Lion Productions

Angela Olson, left, and Anne Benson react to something unsettling in the darkness of a Wisconsin theater.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Michael Brown)

The Grand Oshkosh has had an almost incalculable number of visitors since first opening its doors in 1883.

Think there's a chance a few of them — say, from a few generations back — have never left?

Appleton filmmaker Michael Brown checks into that sort of thing ghost-hunter style in his third and latest film, "Haunted State: Theatre of Shadows." The Grand Oshkosh, formerly known as the Grand Opera House, is one of four historic Wisconsin venues investigated in the documentary.

The new film will have a world premiere event Wednesday at the Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee and, a day later, a showing at the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley in Menasha on Oct. 26.

An appropriate kickoff to Halloween weekend, we'll call it.

It's the second time the 39-year-old Brookfield native has gone down this dark and eerie path. His 2014 film "Haunted State: Whispers From History Past" (which is now streaming on Amazon Prime) brought him and his team to places believed to be paranormal hotspots around the state, including Stone Arch Brewpub in Appleton, an old feed mill in Merrill, an 1890s school house in Wisconsin Rapids and the former Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee.

"I always thought the paranormal was interesting and I think most people feel that way too," said Brown, who directed and executive produced "Theatre of Shadows." "Most people don't know what they think, especially if they haven't had an experience with the paranormal."

Brown said his intention wasn't to change anyone's mind one way or another on the topic of ghosts — just to investigate things that go bump in the night and create an entertaining film.

"In this film there's five things in particular that happened that I might need therapy," he said. "It's pretty crazy."

Along with the Grand, he and his crew rounded up their equipment load of electromagnetic reading devices, radio communications and other gadgets — everything besides Peter Venkman's proton pack, basically — to explore the Pabst and Riverside theaters in Milwaukee and the Barrymore Theatre in Madison.

Folks in the Fox Valley should be happy to know it was the Oshkosh site that provided the best material for the movie. It's the last location encountered and for good reason.

"I will say the climax of this film is the event that happened at the Grand," Brown said. "Without giving it away, something amazing happens and it happens to everybody at the same time. We all experience it and your jaw will be on the ground once you see it."

As you might expect, at no point during these into-the-darkness excursions did some floating ghoul get captured on camera. But in the little abstract ways connections with the paranormal are said to be made, there were some hair-raising moments.

Although he wouldn't spoil his biggest moment, Brown did elaborate on another spooky moment caught on camera inside the 19th century opera house — the place he said was "the busiest" of the theaters.

"I have a MagLite flashlight and the theory, and it's controversial, (but the theory is that) you take a MagLight flashlight and you turn it to just before it can go on and you command a spirit to turn it on by touching it," he said. "The theory is that the electromagnetic energy in the spirit touching the flashlight completes the circuit, therefore turning the flashlight on.

"There's a part on location at the Grand Opera House where I count to five and when I get to five, it turns on. Then I ask it to go off and it goes off."

Don't buy it? That's OK. Even the man who's now put out two films about paranormal field trips wasn't sold as recently as a few years ago. He'd seen TV shows along the lines of "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures," but hadn't drawn any firm conclusions.

"I personally always wondered, Is this real or is this baloney? I did my research ... some of what you see (on TV) is real and some of it is production," he said. "But that's where my film is different from what they're doing."